My dreams are a changin'

Started by Regret, August 21, 2019, 06:47:29 PM

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Regret

#15
I haven't posted about my dreams in that they have been changing (content) so quickly, by the time I could write something, they had already moved on.

After dreaming about meeting a few friends who died long ago, my dreams now take on the content and context of what I experienced that day. Stuff in my waking life and shows that I watch on TV end up being the life I experience when dreaming that evening. It's gotten to the point that I no longer watch violent TV shows in that I end up playing one of the roles, being in some sort of difficult situation in my dreams and that borders on a mild nightmare.

I've even had dreams now that were of things that then happened a day or so later. My dreams seem to be showing me future events and they seem to be accurate, what I dream in the future seems to come true. Doesn't happen a lot but upon waking I say to myself, what was that about only to find it occurring my my waking life the next day or so later.

A few weeks ago someone ( sanmagic7 ) posted

( found it: https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=12959.msg96326#msg96326 )

that structures in dreams are our true selves. I agree with that. My dreams have had structure in them for decades. It was only after I discovered cPTSD that the structures in my dream began to be remodeled, a minor cosmetic change at first to reconstruction of the entire building  and when that happened, no more structures in my dreams.

I would like to add that I think I figured out what cars have been in my dreams. I've had many dreams where I drove somewhere, parked the car and found it missing, stolen or towed, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hour in my dream. I've had some where I parked the car and after crossing the street, turning around and it was gone. The dream was me driving somewhere to meet with or be with a few or a large group of people. The last dream I had like this was driving to my high school class reunion and parking it next to a car owned by a long dead friend. I went into the building to find my classmates in old age, not as they were way back then. I didn't say much to them and went outside to find my car was gone. I woke up from that dream with a realization of what the car meant to me. It was the almost empty social tool box I was given in my youth, had enough tools in it to get me to a social function but then it was gone. In my dream, one the car was gone, I was left with no other tools to interact with people. I didn't know how to be my genuine self, couldn't be my genuine self because the ability to do that was stolen from me long ago and I ended up standing apart from the groups. That is the story of my life living the please/fawn typology. The car represented my minimal social skills that disappeared once those few tools got me to and into a social event.

And these "car" dreams occurred so much that in my more recent car dreams, I was looking for a place to park where my car would be safe, would not be taken, but in every dream it disappeared. I even felt bad in those dreams knowing I had remembered by car was often stolen, I looked for a safe place but failed to put it in a place where it would not be stolen. They were amazing dreams in my trying to protect my car, failing to do so and feeling bad in my dream when it was stolen. I realize that's a lot to unpack or understand but it really did happen to me like that. The mind is a vast and varied land to visit in ones sleep.

I had this dream several weeks ago and it is still in my memory as if I had it last night. And I've not had any car dreams since then. Just like I never had any more dreams with structures in them after seeing the building I worked in for many years totally gutted and reconstructed.

I realize everyone's dreams are personal to them but want to share my "car" realization in case anyone has had similar experience or reasonably good knowledge of what a car is in a dream.

My dreams keep changin' and to what end, I don't know. It's been an interesting 3 years since I discovered my cPTSD disorder.

Regret

My dreams continue to be of current and future content. I no longer dream of things from the past. I dream about what happened or what I saw on TV during the day. And some seem to be predictive in that they have content of future events, of being at work the next day for example. I guess the past is now in the past and my goal or task is to work on things going forward. The mind is a curious and interesting realm when asleep.

Kizzie


Three Roses

Dreams have been the source of deep personal insights and revelations for me. (They've also been the product of too much pizza, too soon before bed! :rofl:)

It's great to hear from someone else how they interpret dreams. It's all about what stands out as significant to you. Dreams are highly personal and each person's imagery is unique to them.

Regret

An update on my dreams as they evolve.

While I had stopped dreaming of the past and only of the current and predictive future, within the past week I've had a few dreams from the past. One dealing with an ex-spouse and the other with a toxic relationship I had in the early 90's. A couple of dreams of each and none of them painful or scary. They were friendly and calming, almost apologetic toward me, being nice to me, accepting me. Guess the back rooms of my mind still have some baggage to unpack. Dreams that if they had happened in real life way back then, life would have been pleasant for me in both relationships.

Funny dream I had last night was of riding in a car with a guy driving, me and a woman. I didn't recognize anyone but as we were going along, the steering wheel came off into the drivers lap and he had to stop the car. I got into the drivers seat, put the steering wheel back on the post and while holding it down, started to drive the car slowly trying to get it off the busy street into a ground covered empty lot. I kept missing the driveway into the lot and had to make 4 or 5 U-turns to try again and finally finding the turn to get the car off the road and safely parked. I can still picture the center of the steering wheel and the metal part that "broke" allowing the wheel to come off. It was quite a complex mechanism. Now, that is a dream to interpret and could be done so in many ways.

The dreams come randomly and many are in current time, things that happened that day or things I might do the next day, after I wake, that were based on what I did before going to sleep. And it seems I start to dream as soon as I fall asleep. I never looked into when and why dreams happen, I just have them and remember some 10% of all I've had. I can still remember vividly the dream in which I walked up to my parents country house to meet myself when I was 3 years old, the dream that turned my life around.

It probably can be said that I no longer go to bed at night, I go to the movies without needing a ticket (although I paid a heavy price to get this far in life so it's only right that what I missed out on is now being re-lived for free).

Regret

 I know these are boring or not much help to anyone, but I just have to post the dreams I had 2 nights ago and last night. Still remember them.

Two nights ago, I was just rehired to a company I worked for in the 80's for 10 years. It no longer exists. As I was walking down a hall to my office, I spotted someone who I did not like, someone who used me and cheated the company. He looked as he did back then and as I saw him, I said his name and just kept walking past him. He said "Don't you wan to talk to me?" and I said no and kept going. For some reason, a red metal door came into the dream. I was told not to enter. I found the door, opened it and discovered it was a large, unfinished (under construction) room with building debris on the floor. Just an empty room. Closed the door and kept walking down the hallway and woke up.

Last night I went back to school, a 70 year old sitting with teenagers, others my age and all ages in between. It was a class on psychology and the professor was lecturing but I had nothing to follow along with in that I just drove down to the school that day and did not have time to get books, etc. Toward the end of the class, he took a half dozen 3-ring binders (blue and white and other colors and types) out of a cabinet and passed them around as examples of how to make one for myself. One that I opened was filled with writing in blue ink that was written by a left handed person. I actually read a few lines but the writing was so small and so much on each page that a few lines did not make sense. Can still remember see "one can not" in the middle of a paragraph. Passed it on and woke up.

What this means is unknown to me other than I seem to still be processing people who did me harm when I was under the spells of cPTSD and it seems my brain is telling me there is more to get done or do in my life, what's left of it.

Just two curious dreams on two consecutive nights.